


John of New Moon

by redscudery



Series: John of New Moon [1]
Category: Emily of New Moon, Emily of New Moon - L. M. Montgomery, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canada, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Background Case, Canada, Coming of Age, Crossover, Kidlock, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Teenlock, Victorian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-05 13:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4182123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redscudery/pseuds/redscudery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rural Prince Edward Island, Canada, 1895.</p>
<p>Twelve-year-old John Watson is perfectly happy living with his invalid father in a secluded cottage, studying his lessons, writing stories, and exploring the woods and beaches. When he becomes an orphan, though, he must go and live with his dead mother's family, the Lestrades, at New Moon Farm. It's a whole new world of school and work and family tradition, and holding up the Watson pride is difficult in such unfamiliar surroundings. </p>
<p>When he meets the wild, fascinating Sherlock Holmes, though, his life is full of magic once again, far from the dutiful, studious life the Lestrades would like him to lead. The only shadow on his happiness is the persistent rumour of a stain on his family's past, and surely he and Sherlock can discover its truth together as well as, perhaps, a truth about themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The House in the Hollow

**Author's Note:**

> This story is for the Sherlock Sunday Summer Serial (http://sherlocksundaysummerserial.tumblr.com/, and check out our collection here on AO3). It will update weekly until September. 
> 
> Tiltedsyllogism helped me brainstorm this, and betaed it as well, and she is wonderful. She is also participating in the summer serial. Check out her Sherlock/Jungle Book fusion!
> 
> This is the first volume; there will be two other volumes with John and Sherlock as older teenagers and then as young adults. I've tagged this as Johnlock because it is, essentially, a love story. I did not tag for underage, because although there might be some consensual kissing in later chapters, that's all there will be, and it's consensual between people of the same age. 
> 
> This text is a fusion with L.M. Montgomery's Emily series, and I'm working from her text, so it's a collaboration, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies style. If you want endless detail about why I've chosen to do that I will be THRILLED to discuss it with you in intense nerdy detail.
> 
> Finally, 1895 is actually a little earlier than the original series was set, but I'm sure you'll understand why I've chosen that year.

The lonesome little house in the hollow was full the day of Douglas Watson’s funeral. People that had never spoken to him in life came in and looked upon his dead face with a freedom and insolent curiosity, and John Watson hated them all. Even more, he hated his mother’s family, the Lestrades, arrayed beside him in their sober funeral dress. They had disapproved of his father, disowned his mother, and were strangers to him, and he wished, as he shook hand after hand, for them to remain so. Uncle Phillip said afterwards that he had never seen a child so absolutely devoid of all natural feeling

In fact, John was holding it all inside him. Boys did not cry, especially boys that were almost thirteen, and even though his father lay dead before him John would not break. The Lestrades were watching; he knew that his behaviour today would determine his future, and he would not have his beloved father shamed by it.  He stood straighter, and hoped the line would end soon.

 

He remembered the last night he had been truly happy.

 

Though the house was "a mile from anywhere", deep in a grassy dale, he had been glad to see it--loved to see it. As it rose into his view, he strode faster and faster, happy to be coming home to Father and to his dinner. the Widow Turner would likely croak, of course, but the Widow Turner hated the house in the hollow and was thus--delicious turnovers aside--not to be trusted. She was an old gossip of no importance, Father said. John knew Father was right; there was nothing like loneliness at that house. If Father was too tired to walk or talk, there was Eva, and if Eva were off on her own, strange errands, he had the dark night and the trees.

It had been a dull, cold day in early May, threatening to rain but never raining.  Father had lain on the sitting-room lounge all day. He had coughed a good deal and he had not talked much to John, which was a very unusual thing for him.  Most of the time he lay with his hands clasped under his head and his large, sunken, dark-blue eyes fixed dreamily and unseeingly on the cloudy sky. John wondered what Father was thinking of. He had not been able to walk, and didn’t come in to dinner, sending John in to eat both shares.

Eva was there that night, and though the Widow Turner sniffed at her she didn’t shoo her out. John fed her bits of soggy toast and underdone egg whenever she patted his leg with an almost human touch, her stripey face reproachful if he neglected her. She was an unbeautiful little thing, skinny and with crooked whiskers, but John loved her. She was a redoubtable

fighter, and strange cats were vanquished in one round.  The fearless little spitfire would even attack dogs and rout them utterly. When the Widow Turner wasn’t looking, he scooped her up and tucked her on to his lap until dinner was over, glorying in her soft purriness.

After dinner, he saw his father had fallen asleep, and so he decided to go up to the spruce barrens. Predictably, the Widow Turner grumbled, but didn’t prevent him.

“Just you wear a sweater,” she said and, desiring to be out in the cold, John went, though he muttered "You are an old gossip of no importance!" under his breath for his own satisfaction as he slipped upstairs to get his sweater. He pulled it over his head, and grinned, suddenly, at his reflection in the mirror, seized by the idea that John-in-the-glass was someone separate from him. He looked at the suddenly strange boy: small, wiry, with sandy hair and a too-large nose. His eyes, navy blue, looked back at him, taking in his patched trousers and scuffed shoes, and a shiver went down his spine.

“You’re a fool, John Watson,” he said to himself, and went outdoors, dashing over the field to the spruce barrens. He loved them too, a place where magic was made. He could feel pirate gold and Crusade knights around each tree, and though he was alone, he was not lonely.

When he had tired himself out fighting monsters, he turned and watched as the last light faded from the sky in flaming orange streaks.  He must go home and write it down in the yellow account-book and then read it to Father. Father liked to hear his writing, though he rarely had the strength to give John advice anymore.

As he thought of the words he would use for the scene, he felt "the flash." John called it that, although he felt that the name didn't exactly describe it.  It couldn't be described--not even to Father, who always seemed a little puzzled by it.  John never spoke of it to anyone else. It had always seemed to John, ever since she could remember, that he was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty and power. Between it and himself hung only a thin curtain; he could never draw the curtain aside--but sometimes, just for a moment, he caught a glimpse. Always when the flash came to him John felt that life was a wonderful, mysterious thing of persistent beauty.

He ran back to the house in the hollow, excited to write down his sketch before the memory picture of what he had seen grew a little blurred, but found the Widow Turner waiting for him on the front step.  John smiled at her, so full was he of the joy of his walk, but the Widow Turner simply looked gloomily at him and said, with a ponderous sigh:

"Do you know that your pa has only a week or two more to live?"

John stood quite still, as still as if he had been suddenly turned to stone.  He did not reply.

"I'm telling you this because I think it's high time you was told," she said.  "I've been at your pa for months to tell you, but he's kept putting it off and off. When the doctor told me last night that the end might come any time now, I just made up my mind that I’d do what was right and tell you.”

John made no move.

“You needn’t stare,” she went on. Laws-a-massy, child, don't look like that!  You'll be looked after. Your ma's people will see to that--on account of the Lestrade pride, if for no other reason.  They won't let one of their own blood starve or go to strangers--even if they have always hated your pa like p'isen, and even if the other...well, they’re very high and mighty, ” she finished lamely.

“The Lestrades can go to,” John hissed, regaining his powers of speech but reluctant to wake his father, “to… Halifax!”

“You’ld be singing a different tune if you had to go to an orphanage, young man, or out to work.”

“I’d rather go out to work.” John said. “No Lestrades will tell me what to do.”

“That’s what you think,” the widow said, but she said it to empty air. John had disappeared into the study to watch over his father.

As John sat on the edge of the settee, as close as he could come to Douglas Watson’s still, breathing body, he stared into the darkness and tried to face the awful thing that lay before him. A terrible pain consumed him, and his flash seemed years ago. He would have to go to the Lestrades, most likely, until he could earn his own living, and how was he to do that? He could not fight imaginary pirates for his bread. Worse, he would be motherless and fatherless now, with nobody to understand him. The world seemed cold--not a howling wilderness, for that would be interesting at least--but a cold nothing.

Douglas Watson woke not long after, and as soon as he saw his son’s face he simply took him in his arms.

“So you know, my dear John?”

“I do.”

"I meant to tell you myself to-night.  And now that old absurdity of Widow Turner has told you--brutally I suppose--and hurt you dreadfully.”

John fought something down that wanted to choke him, but could not.

"Father, I can't--I can't bear it."

"Yes, you can and will.  You will live because there is something for you to do, I think.  You have my gift--along with something I never had.  You will succeed where I failed, John.” Douglas took his son’s hand. The pride in his eyes steeled John, and he squeezed the frail hand gently.

“And now, there are things you should know, John, about your mother’s family. I met her twelve years ago, when I was sub-editor of the Enterprise up in Charlottetown and she was in her last year at Queen's. She was one of the Lestrades from Blair Water.  They live up on the old north shore at Blair Water on New Moon Farm--always have lived there since the first Lestrade came out from the Old Country in 1790. They’re proud, terribly proud--the Lestrade pride is a byword along the north shore, John.  Well, they had some things to be proud of, that cannot be

denied--but they carried it too far. They increased and multiplied and scattered all over, but the old stock at New Moon Farm is pretty well run out.  Only three live there now: your Great-Aunt Martha and your Uncle Gregory and their cousin, Mike Stamford. No children--Martha’s husband ran away to sea, and Greg never did find anyone to suit his tastes. They say he's a bit of a crank, and couldn't find anyone good enough to marry a Lestrade, but he always seemed as if he might have a kind heart, underneath - I think it's more shyness than anything. Your Uncle Oliver lives in Summerside, your Uncle Phillip--now he is a crank--in Shrewsbury, and your Great-Aunt Janine at Priest Pond.

"Greg and Oliver and Phillip were old Archibald Lestrade's children.  His first wife was their mother, your Great-Aunt Martha’s sister. When he was sixty he married again--a young slip of a girl, your Great-Aunt Janine’s sister this time--who died when your mother was born.  Juliet was twenty years younger than her half-family, as she used to call them.  She was very pretty and charming and they all loved and petted her and were very proud of her.  When she fell in love with me, a poor young journalist, with nothing in the world but his pen and his ambition, there was a family earthquake.  The Lestrade pride couldn't tolerate the thing at all.  I won't rake it all up. We were both in the wrong, but things were said I could never forget or forgive.  Your mother married me, John—and the New Moon people would have nothing more to do with her.  Can you believe that, in spite of it, she was never sorry for marrying me?"

"Of course she wouldn't be sorry.  Of course she'd rather have you than all the Lestrades of any kind of a moon, with their moth-eaten traditions."

Father laughed a little--and there was just a note of triumph in his laugh.

“Those traditions are very fine, John. They are not what you’re used to, but the Lestrades are good, solid people.”

 

“That sounds monstrously dull,” John smiled, “as though you are trying to convince yourself and me.”

“A little,” Douglas acknowledged. “There is more to some of them than you might think. Persist, John, and see what is good in them, though you may have to fight to get what you want.”

“I will.”

“You know, Father, I think I remember mother’s funeral, Father--I remember it distinctly.  You

were standing in the middle of a room; I was beside you, holding someone’s hand and Mother was lying just before us in a long, black box.  And you were crying--and I couldn't think why--and I wondered why Mother looked so white and wouldn't open her eyes.  And I reached up and touched her cheek--but someone held me back and somebody in the room said, 'Poor little things!'--why things?- and I was frightened and put my face down on your shoulder."

Douglas’s face closed. "Yes, I recall that.  Your mother died very suddenly, and then... I don't think we'll talk about it. The Lestrades all came to her funeral. The Lestrades have certain traditions and they live up to them very strictly.  One of them is that nothing but candles shall be burned for light at New Moon--and another is that no quarrel must be carried past the grave.  They came when she was dead--they would have come when she was ill if they had known, I will say that much for them.  And they behaved very well--oh, very well indeed.  They were not the Lestrades of New Moon for nothing.   And then they offered to take you, and… take you and bring you up.  I refused. Did I do right, John?"

"Yes--yes--yes!" whispered John, furiously.

"Those years and what I've taught you in them are the only legacy I can leave you, John.  I have been a failure in some things” Douglas swallowed, looking out the window, “and a coward in others, but you have learned enough to be neither of those. And your mother's people will care for you--I know that.  The Lestrade pride will guarantee so much, if nothing else.  And they won’t be able to help loving you once they know you.”

“I don’t care, Father. I will stay with them until I can earn my living and then I will leave. I want to see the world.”

“Don’t be too quick to throw family away, John. There may be very good things for you there. In fact,” Douglas paused, coughing so hard his thin body shook and trembled, “I will write to them now, if you like, so you can meet them before I’m gone.”

“No!” John cried. “We’ve always been just us two. I’ll face them when it’s time, but not before.”

"We'll stay together to the very end, then. And, you know, death isn't terrible. I'll find your mother there--she’s waiting for me.”

“I wish, I almost wish, that I were going with you.” John said.

“You mustn’t. You will live so fully, John, your life will be purple and scarlet. Go and taste it, seize it, feel everything that comes your way. Then write, write, write, and make the world see the beauty you see.”

“Will they let me, the Lestrades? They sound like dreadfully practical people.”

“There’s no denying it,” Douglas said, shaking his head, “but you must persist. Show them your true heart.”

“The Widow Turner said I wasn’t right in the head when I told her about the flash, Father. Won’t this be worse?”

“Nobody is worse than the Widow Turner in that regard, the old fool, but it might be something like that. It will take bravery, though.”

“I will do what I can.”

“John,” Douglas said, taking his son’s face in his hands, “You are made of fine stuff, but to really show that, you must be true to yourself, and take the consequences. That is where you will be at your best.”

“I will. Oh, Father!” John tried to hold back his tears, of  bitterness and joy both, but they came nonetheless. His father held him close, and they saw the moon rise together.

Douglas Watson lived only another week, but it was a full and beautiful week, with no sadness to taint it. He died so quietly and easily that John did not know he was gone until he suddenly felt the strange stillness of the room--there was no breathing in it but his own. John closed the navy eyes and touched the pale brow with love, and though he felt keenly the emptiness of his new world, he was grateful for his father’s peaceful exit.

 

_June 17, 1895._

_Father died yesterday. I do not wish to discuss it. He is with Mother now. That’s all._   
_What happened after he died was tragicomic. It’s a big word but exactly what happened. I called for the Widow Turner (not because I wanted to but because she was the only choice) and just as she was running in (she was definitely listening at the door) Eva came too, because she hadn’t come in at dinner and was hungry I suppose, and Widow Turner wasn’t looking and tripped over Eva and fell flat. The house shook something terrible, and Eva was upset. I picked her up to see if she was hurt while Widow Turner got up but then she scolded me for helping Eva and not her. I suppose I should have but I don’t care about her and I do about Eva._

_Then she stopped scolding me because Father lay there dead._

_I wish he were not._

 

 


	2. A Family Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Lestrades debate John's future, with help from John.

Once the funeral was over, all John wished to do was run away into the spruce barrens to be alone. The Widow Turner collared him, though, and, while trying to straighten his tie, gave him the following charming lecture. This humble chronicler has tried to reproduce, verbatim, the spirit of the Widow Turner’s tirade, in hopes that you, dear reader, understand the pressure put on John’s sensitive nature by such a vulgar speech.

“Well, you held up well, poor boy, an’ that suit fits you well enough, though I wore my fingers to the bone making it up. It would have been a terrible thing had you broke down in hysterics, like Lissy McAllister did at her pa’s funeral, but you ain’t that type, I suppose. Stiff, a little, just as prideful as those Lestrades, for all you’re so fanciful. But if your Uncle Phillip takes you he'll soon cure you of that. He ought to; he’s a widower with no chick or child, and well-to-do. It’ll be a chore to bring you up, but Phillip is the one to do it, in my opinion.  HE won't stand no nonsense.”

“I like nonsense,” John muttered under his breath, but he went unheard.  
“He’s got an elegant house in Shrewsbury. It would be a fine home for you.  He'd learn you some sense and do you a world of good."  
“I don’t want to be done good. I want to be…” and here John paused, for he wanted to say “loved”, but didn’t quite dare. Instead, he said “part of a family.”

“Chance’d be a fine thing,” the widow said, “The fact is, John Watson, you're queer, and folks don't care for queer children.”  
"How am I queer?" demanded John.  
"You talk queer--you're too old for your age--though that ain't YOUR fault.  It comes of never mixing with other children.  I've always threaped at your father to send you to school--learning at home ain't the same thing--but he wouldn't listen to me, of course.  I don't say but what you are as far along in book learning as you need to be, but what you want is to learn how to be like other children.  In one way it would be a good thing if your Uncle Oliver would take you, for he's got a big family.  But he's not as well off as the rest, so it ain't likely he will.  Your Uncle Dimmock might, seeing as he  
reckons himself the head of the family.  He's only got a grown-up daughter.  But his wife's delicate--or fancies she is." 

"I wish Great-Aunt Martha would take me," said John.  He remembered that Father had said Great-Aunt Martha was kind and gentle like his mother.

"Martha!  SHE won't have much say in it--Greg's boss at New Moon.  Mike Stamford helps him, but he ain't quite all there. He's a bit simple--some accident or other when he was a youngster, I've heard.  It addled his head, kind of.  Gregory was mixed up in it some way, I think. Anyhow, I don't reckon the New Moon people will want to be bothered with you.  They're awful set in their ways.  You take my advice and try to please your Uncle Phillip. Be polite--and well-behaved--mebbe he'll take a fancy to you. And leave that cat be!” the widow shouted, as John made to reach for Eva, “She’s plenty spoiled enough already, and you don’t need cat hair on that suit. Sit down nicely in the parlour, and the Lestrades will be back from the burying-ground before you know it.”

Defiantly, John scooped Eva under his arm and went to sit on the parlour floor. “Sit nicely” indeed! And impress Uncle Phillip? She didn’t want anything to do with him; John felt that he loathed all the Lestrades--except perhaps Great-Aunt Martha.  

"But I promised Father I'd be brave," he whispered to Eva, who had settled on his lap in defiance of all widows, "and I will.  I WON'T let the Lestrades see I'm afraid of them--I won't BE afraid of them!"  
When the clatter of wheels was heard in the yard, John stood and went to the door, determined to be a credit to his father. He shook hands, again, as each Lestrade filed into the parlour; the Widow Turner stood next to him and introduced them. Uncle Oliver, with his friendly smile, was well enough, but Uncle Dimmock, who was slim and young-looking, shook John’s hand wetly, and John drew it back in displeasure.  Uncle Dimmock chuckled, seemingly not a bit  
offended.  But John heard a sniff, and looked up into cold gray eyes.  
It was Uncle Phillip--John knew it was Uncle Phillip before the Widow Turner said so. He shook the cool, slender hand held out to him, but he withdrew it almost immediately.

“Ill-bred,” Uncle Phillip sniffed, “but it was only to be expected.”

John clenched his jaw.

“I’m not,” he said, “You don’t want to shake my hand, but you feel you should, so I did it as quickly as possible to spare you.”

Uncle Phillip’s face went almost comically blank at this, and John felt a sudden compunction.  Had he cast a reflection on his father with what was undoubtedly queer behaviour?  
Then, he heard a chuckle, different from Uncle Phillip’s sniff as chalk was from cheese.

"This is your cousin, Mr Mike Stamford," said the Widow Turner.  
"Cousin Mike--Cousin Mike," said that individual.  John looked steadily at him, and liked him at once without any reservations. He had a little, rosy, Cupid-like face; his white hair was nearly gone, and his large, brown eyes were as kind and frank as a child's.  He gave John a hearty handshake, though he looked askance at Uncle Phillip while doing it.  
  
"Hello, young lad!" he said.

John smiled at him- a real, true smile, and from that moment, without a further word, he and Cousin Mike were sealed friends forever. He turned to the next Lestrade with something like regret, though his smile was still in place.

Great-Aunt Martha was next in line, and as her gaze lit upon him, she breathed "Juliet's smile!" she said, half under her breath.  And again Uncle Phillip sniffed. John cared nothing, though, because Great-Aunt Martha looked so sympathetic, her silver hair in coils and her brown eyes bright with affection, that he felt for a moment that he could be at home with her.  
When she spoke it was in a beautiful, soft voice.  
"You poor, dear, child," she said, and put her arm around John for a gentle hug. John returned the hug and had a narrow escape then from letting the Lestrades see him cry, and luckily, because the next person was his Uncle Gregory. He stood, straight and uncomfortable in his black suit, very rich and very stiff. He was of middle height and handsomely built, with silver hair and the same brown eyes as Cousin Mike and Great-Aunt Martha. He bowed, rather uncomfortably, and as John shook his hand, he realized that his father had been right. Uncle Gregory was _shy_ , not a crank--or at least not all a crank. Here was hope, if you like! He looked, searchingly, at his uncle once again.

Greg Lestrade said nothing; he wore the Lestrade pride like a garment one size too large, and he felt disturbed in the presence of this alien, level-gazing child who had already shown that he was anything but meek and humble.  Though Greg Lestrade would never have admitted it, he did not want to be snubbed as Dimmock and Phillip had been, and, releasing John’s hand, he turned towards the others.  
John waited until Uncle Gregory had sat, then chose a hassock where he could see everyone, and waited, alone, now, alone now before the bar of Lestrade opinion.  He would have given anything to be out of the room.  Yet in the back of his mind a design was forming of writing all about it in the old account-book.  It would be interesting.  He could describe them all--he knew he could.  She had the very word for Uncle Phillip's eyes--"stone-grey."  They were just like stones--as hard and cold and relentless.  Then a pang tore through his heart. Father could never again read what he wrote in the account-book. But he would persevere and write nonetheless. Father had said he would succeed, and he would.

“He’s a plain child," said Aunt Eva, suddenly, in her fretful, colourless voice.  
"Well, what else could you expect?" said Aunt Addie, with a sigh that seemed to John to hold some dire significance.  
"He is not a Lestrade, that perfectly clear," said Uncle Phillip.  
“I am myself.” John said gravely, and was rewarded with a chuckle from Cousin Mike. Great-Aunt Martha looked at him with soft eyes.

“You do look like your mother, a little, John,” she said quietly, and John smiled at her again.

“We’re not here to talk about what he looks like,” Uncle Greg said, sternly. “We’re here to talk about what’s to be done with him.”

"The truth is," said Uncle Dimmock, "Aunt Janine ought to take her. She has more of this world's goods than any of us."  
"Aunt Janine would never dream of taking him and you know it well enough!" said Uncle Oliver.  "Besides, Aunt Janine would be entirely too frivolous to have the bringing up of a child, even if she hadn’t got her hands full with young Mary. As for me, I would like to take John--but I feel that I can hardly do it.  I've a large family to provide for."

"He'll not likely live long to bother anyone," said Uncle Phillip crisply.  "He'll probably die of consumption same as his father  
did."

“He does seem rather an odd child, too,” Aunt Addie said. John stared at her in horror. Was this the world, then, where people spoke about others in such a fashion?

“I will not die, and I am not odd. Would you--please--talk about me as though I were here?” John asked, as politely as he could “I feel like I’m invisible, or else a duty, and nobody likes a duty.”

The Lestrades--except for Cousin Mike—looked dumbstruck, and total silence reigned for a moment.

“And that,” Uncle Phillip’s voice broke out, “is what you will be taking on, so think carefully.”  
“Phillip, hold your tongue.” Uncle Gregory said, and John thought he sounded tired. “We are not getting anywhere. One of us must give him a home; Juliet’s child must not be left to the mercy of strangers, and he must have care.”  
"Don't you think WE might take her, Greg?" Great-Aunt Martha asked.  
Uncle Gregory stirred restlessly.  
"I don't suppose he'd be contented at New Moon, with three old  
people like us."  
“I would, you know,” John said, but Uncle Gregory ignored him.  
"Phillip, what about you?" said Uncle Dimmock.  "You're all alone in that big house.  It would be a good thing for you to have some company."  
"I could do it," said Uncle Phillip sharply.  "But it’d take some training. The boy is in bad habits, as sly as a snake and rude." He looked right at John as he said it, and it took all John’s strength to look back into those grey eyes and feign indifference.  
"With wise and careful training many of his faults may be cured," said Uncle Dimmock, pompously.

“Especially since his father…” Uncle Phillip started, but Uncle Gregory cut him off with a brief “Phillip!”

“I am,” John said, struggling to hold his anger in, “right here. And my father is none of your affair!”  
“Nonetheless, you will be silent and you will listen.” Uncle Gregory said. “Doubtless you have had too much of your own way, and you may as well learn what’s expected of you now, which is to be seen and not heard when adults speak.”

“I would prefer to leave the room, then, Uncle Gregory,” said John, as respectfully as he could, “because these people may be adults but they are rude.”

Greg Lestrade stared at the slim boy before him. He did not know quite what to do; he had not had children of his own, and such children he did meet were too much in awe of the Lestrade name to say anything to him at all…except one: Sherlock Holmes. Something in John Watson’s face reminded him of that little troublemaker, and he wondered, exactly, what would happen if the two boys were brought into close proximity. Disaster or peace, he imagined.

Greg sighed, and came back to the present. He knew, with a quite uncomfortable sense, that the boy was right--Addie and Phillip especially were being abominable--but he could not condone what seemed like disrespect.

“John,” he said, “you must…” but thankfully Martha interrupted him.

“Please, John. We loved your mother so, and this is strange for us.” John subsided, feeling humiliated; he felt he had done something that gave the Lestrades the right to talk over him, and though he would bear a great deal for his dead mother’s sake, he found it very hard.

“Lots.” Cousin Mike’s voice was like a beacon, to Greg and to John both. “Draw lots. It’s the best we can do.”

John felt sad once again; did nobody want him? But then he looked at Cousin Mike properly and the twinkle in those brown eyes made him feel as though perhaps someone did.

“Very well,” Uncle Gregory said, and called for paper. Cousin Mike proffered his hat, and soon there were four tokens inside it.

“Will you draw, young lad?” Cousin Mike said, and as he looked at John, John noticed his eyes cast down to the right. His hand shook.

“Draw.” Uncle Gregory said, and John picked the token he thought--hoped--Cousin Mike was indicating. He handed it to his uncle.

Uncle Gregory took the slip from the little shaking hand and held it up.  On it was his own name, and he read it out in a flat voice, though one not unmixed with relief. Great-Aunt Martha suddenly put her handkerchief to her eyes.  
"Well, that's settled," said Uncle Dimmock, getting up with an air of having concluded some disagreeable business.  "And if I'm going to catch that train I've got to hurry.  Of course, as far as the matter of expense goes, Greg, I'll do my share."

"We are not paupers at New Moon," said Uncle Gregory rather coldly.  "Since it has fallen to me to take him, I shall do all that is necessary, Dimmock.”  
“Very well, then. Goodbye, John.”  
They all followed him out--all except Great-Aunt Martha.  She came up to John, standing alone in the middle of the room, and drew her into her arms.  
"I'm so glad, John--I'm so glad," she whispered.  "Don't fret, dear child.  I love you already--and New Moon is a nice place, John."  
"It has a pretty name," said John, struggling for self-control.  
"I hoped I could go with you, Great-Aunt Martha, you and Cousin Mike. But--and here John steeled himself--I'm not a Lestrade, you know."  
Then Great-Aunt Martha said a queer thing--for a Lestrade.  
"Thank heaven for that!"

 

_June 19, 1895,_

_I am to go to New Moon, with Great-Aunt Martha and Cousin Mike and Uncle Greg, as he has told me to call him. I am not sure I can; he is a puzzle, not like Uncle Phillip, who only thinks of what people will say and his own narrow view of right, or Uncle Oliver, who thinks of his wife and family. Uncle Greg is protecting himself from something, but what it is I do not know. It seems as though he might have been someone else at some time, but who?_

_Also, Aunt Addie is a whiny flibertigibbet. I have decided that is all I will say as she is not worth more paper, although had I more I would devote it to a critique of her nose._

_Father continues dead, and I miss him._  
  


 


	3. A Solemn Resolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uncle Gregory discovers John's trove of writing, with near-disastrous consequences, and John makes a solemn vow.

The Lestrades all went away that morning except the New Moon people.  Uncle Gregory announced that they would stay until the next day to pack up and take John with them.

“Most of the furniture belongs to the house,” he said, “so it

won't take us long to get ready.  There are only Douglas Watson's books and his few personal belongings to pack.”

“How shall I carry Eva?” asked John. He wanted her to be comfortable, after all.

Uncle Gregory stared.

“Eva?”

“Eva. My cat.”

“Cat!  You'll take no cats.”

“I must.” John said. “Where she goes, I go.”

“Nonsense!  There are barn cats at New Moon, but they are never allowed in the house.”

“Don't you like cats?” John asked.

“No, I do not. Barn cats are bad enough.”

“I must have her, Uncle Gregory. I must. She’s my friend.”

“Cats aren’t friends.” Greg said, turning away.

“What's a cat more or less on two hundred acres?” said Cousin

Mike.  ”Take 'em along, Greg.”

Gregory considered. He remembered John’s stony face at the funeral, and put aside, for a moment, his disdain of cats.

“Very well, then. But not in the house, John, and that is final. No,” he said, forestalling John’s argument, “I mean it. You might as well learn that first as last. There’ll be no more disrespect as there was last night.”

John was about to protest that he had meant none when Cousin Mike stopped him.

“When he won't, he won't--Lestrade-like.  We're all born with that kink in us, young lad, and you'll have to put up with it--more by token that you're full of it yourself, you know.  Talk about your not being Lestrade!  The Watson is only skin deep with you.”

“It isn't--I'm ALL Watson--I WANT to be,” John said, but he subsided and returned to packing his things. Great-Aunt Martha was pulling clothes from his bureau, tutting at each shabby piece before she folded it.  John was placing the folded pieces in his valise, and Uncle Gregory was methodically going over the room, looking for any of John’s forgotten things.

John watched him nervously as he got closer to the pile of books by the bed.

“Won’t you take a walk, Uncle Gregory? The spruce grove is very fine.”

“A walk?” Greg looked at John as though he had suggested a waltz. What was this strange child up to? He suddenly felt burdened by his new authority and the responsibility it entailed. He had loved his sister Juliet, and was prepared to love her son as best he could, but how could he reconcile that love with all that being a Lestrade meant? He was not sure he wished to instil honor, duty, and sacrifice in the way their father had, but how else could he do it? Friendliness had been a dismal failure with young Sherlock Holmes so far. He supposed he could do a fair imitation of his father’s sternness, if he had to, and insisting on right was no great burden.

“I can finish packing with Great-Aunt Martha.”

“We must be home by dark.” Greg said, and took up the books. They all seemed, to his eye, very new and somewhat unsuitable. He set them aside.

John held his breath. Now Uncle Gregory was only holding the old account-book.

“What's this?” he asked.

John sprang across the floor and snatched the book away.

“You mustn't read that,” he said, “That’s mine--my own PRIVATE PROPERTY.”

“Excuse me, John Watson, but let me tell you that I have a right to read your books.  I am responsible for you now.  I am not going to have anything hidden or underhanded or immoral, understand that.  You have evidently something there that you are ashamed to have seen and I mean to see it.  Give me that book.”

“I'm NOT ashamed of it,” cried John, backing away, “But I won't let you--or ANYBODY--see it.”

Greg followed, and steeled himself.  

“John Watson, do you hear what I say?  Give me that book--at ONCE.”

“No--no!”  Uncle Gregory should not, could not see it. It would be like showing himself naked, John thought, and he simply could not do it. John turned and ran to the kitchen stove, cramming the book in. “How dare you!” Uncle Gregory shouted, following him at a run. He grabbed John by the collar too late.

John felt the hand at his neck, and, in shock, twisted away, striking at his uncle’s hand. Uncle Gregory stopped dead at the crack that echoed through the room. He drew his hand away as if burnt, and he and John stared at each other for a second, blue eyes to brown, before both turning silently back to the stove.

The account-book had caught fire and dissolved, curling up. John straightened his back and watched it with a pain in his belly; it was as if part of him were burning. He felt, rather than saw, Uncle Gregory leave the room, and only then did he slump to his knees. It was terrible to think that all those stories and sketches were gone.   He could never write them again--not just the same, and anyway, if Uncle Gregory were to insist on seeing them, he would not be able to write a thing. Father had never insisted; Father had trusted him.  Uncle Gregory, it seemed, would not.

Mentally, he added a line to his last entry in the old account book: “Uncle Gregory was someone much nicer before, because now he is ARBITRARY, VIOLENT, and UNFAIR.”

He felt better, somehow, though he missed the feel of the paper under his hand.

 

June 20, 1895

My Resolution:

I, John Watson, being of sound mind and body (this is something I read in a book and it means that I am very serious), resolve to always write, so that I can succeed as my father wanted and so that I can help people and make them feel beauty. I resolve to do this even when persecuted by people like Uncle Gregory who do not understand and think I might be looking at immoral things which I would never do.

Signed, this twentieth day of June 1895 (another thing I read), J. Watson.

Codicil: I also swear never to lay my hands on anyone in anger.  J.W.

 

 


	4. New Roots at New Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's arrival at New Moon brings him a new place to love, a greater appreciation for cows, and a mysterious encounter with a ragged boy.

Finally, John set off the double-seated buggy with its fringed canopy, Uncle Greg and Cousin Mike in the front and John tucked in with Great-Aunt Martha. Eva, in her basket, in the back, shrieked ominously as John turned around to watch the little, old, brown house in the hollow. It looked empty and broken-hearted, and a dangerous lump appeared in his throat. He stared forward, determined to maintain the Watson standard, but this was almost undone by Great-Aunt Martha’s warm squeeze of his hand. He smiled at her, wanly, and kept looking forward.   
The drive itself, once this worst was past, turned out to be surprisingly pleasant. Nobody talked much; even Eva had subsided into the silence of despair. Now and then Cousin Mike made a remark, more to himself, as it seemed, than to anybody else.  Sometimes Uncle Gregory answered it, sometimes not, but he always answered briefly, with no unnecessary words.  
They stopped for lunch in Charlottetown; John was very silent during the meal, taking in everything for his now-imaginary account book. The speed of movement in the elegant dining room where they ate roast beef and potatoes was startling to him, and he earned a brief reprimand from Uncle Gregory for staring at the waitress. He had only been trying to decide on the precise word to describe her neat-handedness, but his cheeks stung.

After dinner Uncle Gregory said he must take Great-Aunt Martha to buy some clothes for John.  
“He can’t be wearing that cheap suit in Blair Water,” he said. “You’ll get what’s necessary to outfit him decently now, Martha, and stuff to make up the rest once we’ve arrived.”

“There’s no need for him to wear black, really, except for his Sunday suit.” Great-Aunt Martha said, and, at Uncle Gregory’s nod, they set off, after a curt injunction to Cousin Mike to ‘look after’ John. Since Cousin Mike’s idea of looking after involved a very large ice-cream sundae (something heretofore unknown to John) this was no great trial, and John took advantage of this freedom to speak freely.

“Is it nice at New Moon?” John asked, after he had demolished most of the ice-cream.

“Nice.... It’s home.  But, young lad, there are hundreds of magic places, where if you turn, just right, you can still see fairies.”

“Fairies!” John exclaimed, then caught himself. Could Cousin Mike be teasing him? He looked searchingly into those brown eyes and saw only delight, not malice. He sighed. He knew, really knew, that there was no such thing as fairies, but he also thought how delightful it would be if there were. “Really, Cousin Mike?” At least he knew he wouldn’t be laughed at if he showed credulity.

“Possibly,” Cousin Mike replied, his brown eyes twinkling, and that was all he would say until Uncle Gregory and Great-Aunt Martha returned.

It was sunset when they came to Blair Water--a rosy sunset that flooded the long, sandy sea-coast with colour. John saw New Moon before he was told where it was:  a big house peering whitely through a veil of tall old trees--no mushroom growth of yesterday's birches but trees that had loved and been loved by three generations--a glimpse of silver water glistening through the dark spruces--the Blair Water itself. A real new moon, golden and slender rose above it, and as it did, John felt the flash come, and sat mesmerized with the thrill of it until Uncle Gregory pulled up in front of the house.   
John scrambled out, Eva’s basket in one hand, and stood there for a moment. He was about to go in when Uncle Gregory gestured to the basket (in which Eva had decided to resume her unhappy yowling).

“Mike, take that to the barn,” he said.

“But, Uncle Gregory,” John exclaimed, “You can’t just let her go! She’ll be lonely.”

“I can and will, John. There are no cats inside at New Moon. And cats don’t get lonely.”

“They do,” John insisted, but Cousin Mike interrupted.

“She’ll be fine, John,” he said, taking the basket.  “Go on in, now.”

John walked reluctantly up to the door and into an enormous kitchen. Great-Aunt Martha was lighting candles here and there, in great, shining, brass candlesticks, and the light showed dark wooden walls and a low ceiling. Black rafters crossed it, from which hung hams and sides of bacon and bunches of herbs and new socks and mittens, and many other things. The sanded floor was spotlessly white, but the boards had been scrubbed away through the years, and in front of the stove they had sagged, making a queer, shallow little hollow.  In one corner of the ceiling was a large square hole which looked black and spookish in the candlelight, and made him feel deliciously creepy.   _Anything_ might pop down out of a hole like that.

John felt another urge for paper and pen. He desperately wanted to record the inky blackness above him, full of possibilities. He frowned his twitching fingers away, though, and willed himself to remember the sentences he was composing in his mind.  
"Cold?" said Great-Aunt Martha kindly.  "These June evenings are chilly yet.  Come into the sitting-room--Mike has kindled a fire in the stove there now, and you can have a little lunch before bed."  
John, his hands balled into fists, went into the sitting-room. Much more cheerful than the kitchen, it was, with bright colours and comfortable furniture, though it was very rich and imposing and Lestrade-like.  John had never seen such curtains before.  But best of all were the friendly gleams and flickers from the jolly hardwood fire in the open stove that mellowed the ghostly candlelight with something warm and rosy-golden.  John toasted his toes before it and felt reviving interest in his surroundings.  There- books! What mysteries might lurk behind the chintz-lined glass doors of the bookcase!  He got up and went to open the bookcase door, but before he could see more than the backs of rather ponderous volumes, Uncle Gregory came in, followed by Great-Aunt Martha with a mug of milk and a plate of oatcakes.  
"John," said Uncle Gregory sternly, "shut that door. You may look at the books with permission, when it’s not so late and when you have no work to do."  
“Father always let me read before bed," John said.  
Uncle Gregory looked at him sharply, but didn’t say anything. John saw the twitch of his mouth and decided to follow suit, though he felt decidedly mulish. Instead, he drank the milk and worried down the oatcakes, uncomfortable now despite the friendly firelight. He saw, with a child’s perspicacity and something more than a child’s intelligence, that Uncle Gregory was ill-at-ease with him there. Regrettably (for while John is our hero and a dear boy, he is no model child) he was just still angry enough about the burnt account books and the bookshelf to hold his own silence and let the tension pervade the room. It was a strain, though, to a child used to harmony, and he was glad when Great-Aunt Martha stood and collected the dishes.

“Bedtime,” Uncle Gregory said, shortly. “John, you’ll sleep in the hired man’s room. Follow me.” John rose obediently, nodding to Cousin Mike, who was nearly asleep in his chair. He would have nodded to Great-Aunt Martha too, but she caught his arm on her way out of the kitchen and gave him a warm kiss. He ducked his head, but then kissed her back on her soft cheek.

“Welcome home, John,” she said. Her eyes were bright with tears.

“Thank you,” he said, and turned quickly away to follow Uncle Gregory up the stairs.

 

The hired man’s room, though it was in the garret, a floor above the family’s rooms, turned out to be larger than his own room in the house in the hollow, It was clean and neat, with an old-fashioned patchwork quilt on the walls and heavy oak furniture, and, best of all to John’s mind, a small diamond-shaped window that looked out over Blair Water. He flew to it and was immediately absorbed in the shine of moonlight over fields.

“John!” Uncle Gregory said gruffly, after it had become clear that John wasn’t going to move. “Bedtime.”   
In fact, Greg Lestrade had been quite torn over where to put this strange, serious boy. He could not have given him his sister Juliet’s room, though she had been the boy’s mother. There was something too bitter yet about it, and it didn’t seem right somehow. He didn’t want to wish the legacy of Lestrade pride on John; Juliet had had it and it had chafed and hurt her, and she had kicked the traces. He himself had kept within them but at a price.

So, the hired man’s room. It was comfortable, at least, and while Martha had frowned when he’d decreed it, at least it had no sad history.Also, it was impossible to climb out the window. Greg wasn’t that familiar with young boys’ hijinks, but he remembered climbing out of his own bedroom window once, and being whipped for it. He knew that he did not have it in him to whip anyone, and therefore the issue was best avoided.

“Good night, John,” he said, stiffly. John was standing there looking at him, his hand small on his valise, waiting for him to leave. “Breakfast at seven o’clock.”

“Seven o’clock. Good night, Uncle Gregory.”

Greg turned and left the room, shutting the door behind him gently. He stifled a sudden urge to laugh wildly. First, he frightened John, then he grabbed him like a common thief, then he could not find two words to say. How, how on earth, was he ever going to manage this composed little person?

 

As for the ‘composed little person’, he was not so composed. Without his father, his home, his cat, or his account book, he felt very much all alone in that neat little chamber. The tears he had worked so hard to restrain earlier slid down his face as his silent sobs wracked his body. What a relief it would have been for him to write out his pain and loss, but he was denied even that, and he cried until the house had gone silent.

“I wonder if anybody in the world is awake but me," thought John, feeling a sickening loneliness.  "If I only had Eva here!  I wonder where she is.  I wonder if they gave her any supper."

Cousin Mike had carried Eva’s basket off. Where had he put it?  Perhaps Eva would get out and go home--John had heard cats always went back home.  He wished HE could get out and go home--he pictured himself and his cat running eagerly along the dark, starlit roads to the little house in the hollow. But it would be empty, he knew, for even the Widow Turner had left that day.  
"Will it ever be morning?" thought John.  "Perhaps things won't be so bad in the morning." He rolled over and looked out the window, and his soul suddenly escaped the painful neatness of the hired man’s room and was outdoors, in the clouds. He fell into a soft sleep, finally, and dreamed of nothing.

 

The next day dawned bright and fresh, and John woke with a new sense of purpose. He was here, so here he would stay, and his first order of business was to find Eva and make sure she had had something to eat.

When he came down the stairs Great-Aunt Martha was setting the breakfast table in the kitchen, which seemed quite bright and jolly in the glow of morning sunshine. Even the black hole in the ceiling had ceased to be spookish and become only a commonplace entrance to the kitchen loft.  And there! On the red-sandstone doorstep Eva was sitting, preening her fur as contentedly as if she had lived at New Moon all her life.  John did not know it, but Eva had already drunk deep the delight of battle with her peers that morning and taught the barn cats their place once and for all.  Cousin Mike's big yellow Tom had got a fearful drubbing, and was minus several bits of his anatomy, while a stuck-up, black lady-cat, who fancied herself considerably, had made up her mind that if that narrow-faced tabby interloper from goodness knew where was going to stay at New Moon, SHE was not.  
John gathered Eva up in his arms and kissed her joyously, to the horror of Uncle Gregory, who was coming in from the barn, his pitchfork over his shoulder.

“Don’t let me see you kissing cats, boy!” he barked, almost in spite of himself. Greg knew he shouldn’t have said it the moment it came out of his mouth, but he didn’t like cats--they did their job well enough, but he’d rather not see them.

John stood straight.

“Of course not, Uncle Gregory,” he said, but there was an edge to his voice that made Greg sure that John would be kissing that cat just out of his range of sight for the next six months. He supposed it could have been worse, but wished his hastiness at the bottom of the well.

 

After breakfast Uncle Gregory informed John that henceforth it would be one of his duties to drive the cows to pasture every morning.  
"Mike has no hired man just now and it will save him a few minutes."  
"And don't worry," added Great-Aunt Martha, "the cows know the way so well they'll go of themselves.  You have only to follow and shut the gates."  
"I'm not worried," said John.  
But he was.  He knew nothing about cows; still, he was determined that the Lestrades should not suspect a Watson, especially a boy of his age, was scared. So, his heart beating fast, he picked a willow switch and went to the barn. However, he was thankful to find that cows were not such ferocious animals after all.  They went gravely on ahead and he had only to follow, through the old orchard and then through the scrub maple growth beyond, along a twisted, ferny path that seemed to be one of the magical places Cousin Mike had talked about in Charlottetown. Every corner seemed to hide some new delight, something just a little out of reach. At one, John thought he heard a rustle, but there was nothing; at another, a slight movement in the bush, but nothing again. Birds, he supposed, or--fancy seizing him--fairies.  


He ignored any further rustling in favour of drinking in the view. The old pasture ran before her in a succession of little green hills right down to the famous Blair Water--an almost perfectly round pond, with grassy, sloping, treeless margins.  Beyond it was the Blair Water valley, filled with homesteads, and further out the great sweep of the white-  
capped gulf.  It seemed to John's eyes a charming land of green shadows, and blue waters.  Down in one corner of the pasture, walled off by an old stone dyke, was the little private graveyard where the dead-and-gone Lestrades were buried. Off to the right, on the crest of a steep little hill, covered with young birches and firs, was a house that puzzled and intrigued John.  It was grey and weather-worn, but it didn't look old.  It had never been finished; the roof was shingled but the sides were not, and the windows were boarded over.  Why had it never been finished?  And it was meant to be such a perfect little house--a house where there would be nice chairs and cosy fires and bookcases and lovely, fat, purry cats and unexpected corners; then and there he named it the Disappointed House.  
Then, he felt that, before he went back, she must slip along the pasture fence and explore a certain path which she saw going back into the  grove of spruce and maple further down.  He did--and found a wild little path with lady-ferns beckoning and blowing along it, with June-bells blossoming and trees ripe for climbing. He breathed in the tang of fir-balsam and lost himself in a glory of imaginary descriptions.  
It was, thus, all the more startling when a being dropped out of a tree before him. John had a vague impression of curls and long limbs and raggedy trousers before the boy--was it a boy? It must be--opened his mouth and spoke.

“Well,” he said, “You don’t look like the scion of a degenerate family.”

John caught his breath.

“I don’t look like a _what_?” he choked,

“A scion of a degenerate family.”

“My family is not,” John said, drawing himself up to his full height, which, he was glad to see, was somewhat greater than the other boy’s, “degenerate.”

“That’s not what my brother says.”

“Your brother has been misinformed.” John said coldly, and turned to leave.

“He’s never wrong!” the other boy shouted at his back. John did not deign to answer. Degenerate, indeed. He had only just met the Lestrades, but he knew in his heart that while they were many things, degenerate they were not. This boy was more degenerate than the lot of them.

Still, he was interesting, and John hungered after interesting. At the next turn in the path he looked back, but the boy had vanished.

 

That first Saturday and Sunday at New Moon always stood out in John's memory as a very wonderful time, so crowded was it with new and generally delightful impressions.  There was a certain charm about the old house which John felt  
keenly and responded to, and he loved the beautiful land around him. So, in spite of the ache for his father and the house in the hollow which persisted all the time, he was beginning to be a little glad again in sunset and bird song and early white stars, in  
moonlit nights and singing winds.  He knew life was going to be wonderful here--wonderful and interesting, what with out-door cook- houses and cream-girdled dairies and pond paths and sundials, and Disappointed Houses and men who didn't believe in God, ANY God.   
"Why,” he thought, as he --I'm going to LOVE New Moon," thought John, quite amazed at the idea.

 

_June 21, 1895_

_I am writing this in my head but I hope I will remember because I learned so many things today. Cousin Mike and I had a good talk (Cousin Mike says ‘jaw’ but I saw Uncle Gregory’s face when he said it and so I will not say it even though it is very picturesque) in the old orchard last night. At New Moon there is a new orchard and an old orchard and while the new orchard gives more apples (Cousin Mike says) the old one is more picturesque. He told me he writes poetry but only in his head and only in the fall, and--terrible news--he doesn’t write it down because there’s no extra paper at New Moon. Uncle Gregory won’t buy it unless it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t know what I will do now. Cousin Mike says if you ask too much he will get a LOOK and I will be afraid. I don’t think so. I’m not afraid of Uncle Gregory._

_The Disappointed House is disappointed because someone was supposed to marry someone else and she ran away as he was putting in the last nail--very poetic--and so he left it there and went off to British Columbia. But he got married so it is not as tragic as it seems. I feel sorry for the house, though. I want it to be finished. IT wants to be finished._

_Also, I know who the raggedy boy is now. He’s Sherlock Holmes. His brother, Dr. Mycroft Holmes, is an infidel. He’s also a Lestrade cousin, but way back, and so that’s why he’s the New Moon doctor even though he doesn’t go to church. I asked if Sherlock believed in God and Cousin Mike just shook his head. Apparently Sherlock is a terror and nobody can make him do anything, not even go to school or eat._ _I don’t know about that. He looks like he could be bossed._

_I wonder who he thinks is degenerate?_


End file.
